15th International Conference of the Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM2025)
The 15th International Conference of the Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM) Society (IDRiM2025), titled “Advancing disaster risk reduction in islands and remote areas”, highlights the distinct risk environments and multifaceted challenges faced by islands and remote areas. In this context, the conference places accessibility (physical, social, economic, institutional, etc.) at the center examining its impact on disaster prevention and mitigation, emergency response, and disaster recovery in the era of climate crisis and globalization.
Remote areas, such as small islands, peninsulas, forest and rural communities, and mountainous regions, are often characterized by their geographic isolation, limited infrastructure, forced self-reliance, and fragile ecosystems. These regions face significant challenges in disaster risk reduction and management, including difficulties in accessing resources and services, and weak connection to emergency management systems. Communication barriers and fragmented governance structures further hinder communication and coordination among stakeholders, and challenge access to critical information. Additionally, the impacts of climate change and globalization exacerbate vulnerabilities, making it essential to develop and implement adaptive, sustainable, and locally tailored solutions to reduce risks and enhance resilience.
Addressing disaster risks in complex and resource-constrained settings often reveals critical implementation gaps. To bridge these gaps, emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of implementation science, which integrates research, policy, and practice to develop adaptive, collaborative, and participatory solutions for disaster risk management. Implementation science enables the systematic identification of barriers to effective action and the development of tailored strategies to overcome them, ensuring that interventions are context-specific and feasible. Additionally, it fosters continuous learning through iterative processes, allowing stakeholders to refine their approaches based on real-time feedback and evolving conditions. By focusing on the practicalities of implementing integrated disaster risk management, the conference invites the scientific community, decision-makers, and practitioners to explore strategies for disaster risk reduction and management in contexts where access to locations, infrastructure, services, resources, funding, information, and knowledge is limited, intermittent, or constrained.
To this end, IDRiM2025 encompasses the following topics, preferably focusing on islands and remote areas although other contributions, for example concerning urban areas, will be also considered.
Understanding disaster risk
- (Disaster) Risk assessment at a local level considering global flows and trends
- Frameworks to bridge knowledge and practice, fostering collaborative approaches to risk assessment
- Coastal and mountain hazards and risks in the era of climate change
- All-of-society engagement and participation for better risk and disaster data
- Citizen science for disaster risk reduction
- Sharing risk knowledge amongst different geo-administrative levels, sectors, communities, and scientific fields
- Spatial and temporal dimensions of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and disaster risk
- Comparing disaster response and recovery capacities in remote vs. non-remote areas
Strengthening disaster risk governance towards reducing and managing disaster risk in islands and remote areas
- All-of-society disaster risk reduction and management
- Risk awareness, information and communication leaving no one behind
- Capacity-building for participatory and risk-informed decision-making
- Science-policy-practice-community collaboration in disaster reduction and management
- Developing capacities and knowledge towards a resilient future
- Policies for enhancing individual, community and institutional disaster resilience and climate change adaptation
- Risk governance structures that integrate implementation science to enhance cross-sectoral collaboration and coordination
Investing in disaster risk reduction and resilience in islands and remote areas
- Sustainable and resilient infrastructure, tools and systems to improve accessibility
- Incentivizing private sector investment and engagement in disaster risk reduction
- Innovative investments and financing mechanisms for islands and remote areas
- Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction towards local development
- Risk informed investment in islands and remote areas, focusing on health, transport and tourism
- Investing in Nature based Solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation
- Comparing approaches to infrastructure resilience in remote and non-remote areas
Improving disaster preparedness and response – “Build Back Better”
- Multi-Hazard early warning systems considering local priorities and challenges
- Emergency evacuation and relocation through the lens of sustainable development
- Information and Communication Systems for crisis and disaster management
- Disaster recovery and reconstruction of historic / traditional settlements and areas
- Build Back Better from disaster
- Inclusive preparedness, response, recovery and reconstruction
- Leveraging resilience to hazards and sustainability through disaster reconstruction
- Learning from disasters
Embedding adaptive processes in disaster preparedness and emergency response efforts
Overall, we welcome contributions from around the world, related to disaster risk assessment, reduction and management; risk perception and communication; risk governance; crisis and emergency management; disaster preparedness and response; disaster recovery and reconstruction; climate change adaptation; resilience to hazards and disasters; sustainable development and disaster risk reduction.
All hazards, risks, and disaster types are of concern, including those relating with public health emergencies (e.g., epidemics, biological), technological accidents (e.g., chemical, radiological), environmental and climato-meteorological hazards (e.g., earthquake, landslide, extreme temperature, storm, flood, drought/desertification), climate change, while the emphasis remains on islands and remote areas.
Contributions from young scientists from all over the world are highly encouraged and are considered both for the online Young Scientists (YSS) Day that will take place on September 23, 2025, and for the conference. All young scientist participants will automatically be entered into the YSS Award competition.
The Conference is organized by the Municipality of East Samos in collaboration with the University of the Aegean and will take place in Samos (Northern Aegean Sea, Greece) on September 28 – October 1, 2025. An island near international borders is a suitable place for hosting dialogues on challenges faced by islands and remote areas due to the local conditions and broader trends. The island has learnt from past crises and disasters and is currently taking steps to reduce disaster risk and to build emergency and crisis management capacity. In 2024, the Municipality of East Samos became the first Greek municipality, and the third in the Mediterranean, to receive UNESCO’s “Tsunami Ready Community” recognition.
Samos is also well known for its natural beauty, archaeological sites, excellent food and wine, and local hospitality. To better appreciate the island, participants will have the opportunity to enjoy a rich social program and parallel events.
